In the End, I'll Be the One
by MissMandS
Summary: When Fili has a girl randomly show up to her bonfire for one claiming to be her guardian angel, she assumes it's all a part of too much beer and a mopey mood. Until Sigrid flashes her wings. Really, the only appropriate response after that is for her to pass out on the porch and hope this is all a drunken dream. Female Fili, modern day AU.
1. Chapter 1

Fili stares across the fire at the girl, trying to remember when she got here and just what her name is. She isn't that buzzed, surely not after just a couple of beers. But then again she hasn't drank for a while and she isn't feeling too good about herself right now.

"I'm sorry but what's your name again and just who are you?" Fili asks, leaning down to pick up some more sticks for the fire. The girl doesn't look the least bit offended as she hands a stick to Fili.

"Sigrid, my name is Sigrid. And your name is Fili. I've been waiting to meet you for quite some time; I've been searching for a while now you see."

"Do I owe you money or something? Or did my brother do something?" Fili asks, standing up and moving towards the cooler. If she's lucky then it's something Kili did and hopefully all of this can be smoothed over with alcohol.

"No, you owe me nothing. And your brother hasn't done anything as far as I know. I'm your guardian angel." The snort that Fili lets out is unexpected and has beer spraying across the porch.

"You know I would really rather just cut the bullshit and you tell me what exactly it was that my brother did." Fili says between coughs. Sigrid doesn't bat an eye as she stands up from her chair, moving slowly towards her. Her movements are slow, calm and deliberate, giving no emotion away.

"I would not joke about such a serious matter with you Fili; I am your guardian angel." Fili takes a long drink of beer, looking at Sigrid over the top of her bottle.

"Okay then. If you're an angel prove it to me." When Sigrid's wings flash out at her the only appropriate response seems to be for her to collapse, the beer bottle shattering on the porch floor.

She wakes up later with a fuzzy, throbbing head and bandaged hand. Fili sits up slowly, putting a hand to her head and looking around the living room. From the kitchen she can hear the sound of water running and somewhere beneath the water there is the fluttering of wings. Fili lets her head fall back onto the arm of the couch with a groan, squeezing her eyes shut as if she tries hard enough she can open them up and Sigrid will be gone. She will be back at the fire and having beers and moping and there will be no more guardian angel.

"Fili are you awake?" Her mother is walking towards her and she sounds concerned, which is all that Fili needs right now. She sits up slowly, still clutching her head as she looks at her mother. Dís looks from the kitchen to Fili, motioning for her to lean in.

"Your friend Sigrid is here, at least she says that she's your friend. I can't remember ever meeting her but…She doesn't have a place to go tonight and I can't just kick her out." Dís whispers. The water is still running and now she can hear the clink of dishes.

"She's volunteered to help out around the house…" Dís says quietly as Fili continues to sit there.

"Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and set up a rollaway bed in my room then I guess and tomorrow, tomorrow we can figure things out." Fili says quietly and tries to will the pounding in her head go away as her mother walks off, muttering about sheets and blankets. She waits until her mother's footsteps have faded before she calls.

"Is this God's way of punishing me for something that I did? I swear I didn't mean to stomp on my brother's fingers and break them an hour before his date that time in high school." There's no laughter, no snorts, no giggles from Sigrid as she comes to stand in the living room, her hands dripping and firmly planted by her sides.

"I was sent to be your guardian because I have some sort of unfinished business on this earth and you are in need of assistance; how it works out for the both of us depends on how willing you are to work with me."

"I'm letting you sleep in my house…" Fili grumbles and gives her wings a slight glare. "So do others…I mean do they see you like I see you or?"

"Your mother sees me as a human girl although my back will feel a little bit strange to her. From what I understand it feels like burns or scars." Sigrid says quietly as she joins Fili on the couch. She drops some pills into her hand and Fili sees a slight tint to her fingers as she curls them back into her lap.

"I remember my mother used to give these to me for headaches."

"Do you remember a lot from your. I don't know what to call it, human life, past life?" Sigrid hums as she stares at the white tint on her fingers, left behind by the pills.

"I've heard other ones like me call it their past lives. I remember some things, the sound of my name from my father. I remember hearing a baby crying and I think that was my sister. I remember being really tired and then…I just remember bits and pieces. I remember what it felt like to be tired the most though."

"And how did you?"

"I can't remember. I've tried to remember and even searched for any sort of memories but never found any." Dís is in the doorway again, clearing her throat quietly.

"I've got the bed all set up if you two are ready." Sigrid stands up and with a quiet murmur of 'thank you' disappears.

"Your brother comes home in a couple days, maybe you can introduce them. Maybe he knows someone from the college." Fili turns into her mother's shoulder, not bothering to tell her that it would be a useless search.

* * *

I'm not going to lie. I bawled while writing this. This was meant to be kind of cute and sweet and fluffy then the feels just sort of ambushed me out of nowhere. It'll be four chapters and then complete.


	2. Chapter 2

**TRIGGER WARNING: Homophobic language**

* * *

Fili twists her rings around her fingers, glancing first at Sigrid's bare fingers and then at her blank face. She sits on the still made rollaway bed, her legs crossed and her wings stretched out. Fili's head still throbs slightly and her bandages need a changing but the sharp edge is gone. Staring at Sigrid though is threatening to bring it back.

"Did you sleep well last night?" Fili asks, sliding towards the edge of the bed slowly as if waiting for some sort of rebuff from Sigrid.

"I don't sleep; I can lie for hours though and just rest until my body feels like it's gotten the energy it would need was I alive. Your nice is room. I've lain in all sorts of places before, places where people could not see me simply because I had not found you yet. I would lie on benches, on the ground, even in a tent once. Your room is warm though and there's no anger in it."

"Has there been anger in other places you've spent?" Fili stands up from the bed and moves towards the dresser. She has to shower, change her bandages and still wrap her head around this guardian angel business. That and Kili comes home today. Fili groans and lets her head fall against the dresser. Her brother will be home in a few hours and knowing him he's probably going to be speeding home. And when he sees Sigrid, there will be an endless bout of jokes at her expense more than likely.

"Can I ask you something?" Fili murmurs as she digs through her drawers.

"I still haven't answered your last question but yes, you may ask me." Sigrid says.

"Do you have to be around me all the time or is there somewhere else you could go so my brother…I don't want to be the butt of his jokes." Fili lifts her head from the dresser to find Sigrid standing from the rollaway bed. She runs her hand over some of the wrinkles left by her sitting and then moves towards the door, nodding shallowly.

"I'll be back later. Although may I just say you should not be afraid of being the butt of your brother's jokes. You know who you are and should not be ashamed." And then Sigrid is gone, the door closing her behind her with a quiet click.

The first thing that Fili sees upon coming downstairs is the pinched expression of her mother who sits at the table with a cup of untouched coffee in front of her. She barely grunts a greeting as Fili sits down across from her.

"Is everything all right?" Fili asks.

"That girl Sigrid, she left early this morning. I asked her if everything was all right and she told me that she had to run some errands. There's something off about her Fili, something that makes me worried…I ran away when I was about fifteen. I was so angry with your grandfather and your uncle about something so stupid now that I look back on it. But at the time it made perfect sense for me to run away. I did things I shouldn't have, talked to people that I had no business talking to. I guess that I'm just worried something bad is going to happen to that girl…" Dís trails off, scrubbing her hands over her face.

"We can help her." Her mother gives her a weak smile, shaking her head.

"You can only help someone so much honey. They have to want to get better, to improve their lives…They have to want the help. Want my coffee?" Without waiting for an answer Dís pushes it towards Fili and walks out of the kitchen, muttering about needing to clean the house.

Kili arrives in the middle of cleaning. Fili is lying in the middle of the living room floor, contemplating whether she should bang her head against the wall or just give in and scrub the toilets when Kili sprawls himself on top of her. They let out simultaneous groans; Fili's one of pain and Kili's one of exhaustion. Kili presses his head between her shoulder blades, groaning against her skin.

"The drive was a miserable one. I stopped for a family of ducks to let them go by me and they shuffled so slowly. One would stop and the others would all stop and stare at me. And they were just so fluffy Fee, I couldn't hit them." Kili whines.

"I'm surprised that you didn't bring one home." Kili's silence has her groaning as she lifts her head to glare at her sheepish looking brother. "Kee,"

"I didn't bring one home…But. Nori is waking up and I was going to see if you wanted to go and visit her. Well she's not completely waking up. But the doctors said that she's having more lucid moments, talking and squeezing their fingers." Fili barely hears him over the heavy lead weight that settles in her stomach.

"Dori won't let me see her. He blames me for what happened. He's always blamed me for what happened." Kili stares at her with pursed lips and a pinched expression on his face. He sits up, sighing as he draws his knees to his chest almost like a shield.

"Fili. What happened was not your fault. What happened has happened and there was nothing we could do to stop it. And there's no shame in feeling the way you felt or do feel or," Fili stands up sharply, heading for the stairs. Kili's voice slowly fades away behind her, shame coloring his face as he follows her up the stairs, silent this time.

"Do you want me to go with you?" He asks quietly. She can remember the almost kiss that Nori gave her. The silky rustle of their prom dresses and the way that it shattered the surface of the earth when Fili shoved her away. She can remember the startled look in Nori's eyes that had changed to fury when Fili had yelled: 'I'm not a dyke like you' and she could still hear the shushing of her feet as she kicked off her heels which she promptly threw at Fili. She had given her a rough smile as she nodded. Nori had nodded as she said 'no you're not, you're much worse'.

Fili sat for hours after Nori had left, her phone chiming with text messages and voice mails that went unread and unheard. She sat with tears streaming down her cheeks, tears of shame and tears of anger. Tears of shame that she was the way she was, that Nori was the way she was. Worry swelled in her stomach that her family would discover what she was and wouldn't they be so very disappointed? Wouldn't they be disgusted by her? The ideas that poured into her mind, fueled by her emotions had her crumpling into a ball as her phone continued its chiming.

By the time that Kili had found her, his suit rumpled and his hair wild, her phone was nearly dead. He sat her up and clutched her shoulders as she gulped in mouthfuls of air, fearful that he could see inside, could see what she was. It took her a moment to notice, to realize that Kili was sobbing as he pressed his face against her shoulder and repeated the word 'dead' over and over. The words made no sense at that time in her muddled mind full of tears and anxiety ridden thoughts.

Until her mother sat her down and she took both hers and Kili's hands in hers and took in a shaky breath as she told them the story through wheezy breaths. A house fire she said had started during prom. Nori had gotten home as the fire engines were pulling up and went inside trying to save Ori. Smoke inhalation and coma were words that only belonged to books before that night and then they belonged in her life, they were labels that had been plastered on her friends and she was letting out shrieks that were meant to be cries. And her mother just kept saying 'I know baby' as Kili repeated 'it's not fair' over and over. In the grand scheme of things because Dori needed someone to blame, because he didn't want to believe that Ori was dead and Nori was in a coma he needed a pariah. And because Fili was the one who convinced Nori to go. Because Fili was the last person Nori was with it was her fault. Because she could have been home. She could have saved Ori. She could have done something.

"Do I have to go?" Fili asks.

"I won't force you. Dori doesn't go on these days, he has to work." Kili's voice trails off and his feet shuffle nervously on the floor. Fili stuffs her shaking hands into her pockets and with an unsteady breath turns towards Kili.

"I'll go see her."


End file.
